News Release

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 4, 2008--Illumina, Inc.
(NASDAQ:ILMN) today announced the appointment of Dr. Mostafa Ronaghi
as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. As reported
during Illumina's July 22, 2008 second quarter earnings release, Dr.
Ronaghi joined Illumina following the Company's recent acquisition of
Avantome, Inc., which closed on August 1, 2008. Among his other
duties, Dr. Ronaghi will be responsible for leading the technology
development effort at Illumina including the Avantome technology,
which is a low-cost, long-read-length sequencing technique that
complements Illumina's current sequencing technologies.

Dr. Ronaghi is an experienced entrepreneur with Avantome being his
fourth life sciences start-up company. In 1997, he co-founded
Pyrosequencing AB, which was later renamed to Biotage AB in 2003, and
led the company to a successful initial public offering in June 2000
on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. In 2001, Dr. Ronaghi co-founded
ParAllele Bioscience. ParAllele, which was eventually acquired by
Affymetrix, Inc., was involved in the development and
commercialization of highly multiplexed technology for genetic testing
and was later acquired by Affymetrix. In 2005, Dr. Ronaghi co-founded
NextBio, a search engine for life science data.

Dr. Ronaghi earned his Ph.D. from the Royal Institute of
Technology in Sweden and, until recently, he was associated with
Stanford University as a principal investigator focusing on developing
novel tools for molecular diagnostic applications. He holds more than
20 pending and issued patents and has written more than 50
peer-reviewed publications in journals and books. Dr. Ronaghi also
serves on the Board of Directors of Microchip Biotechnologies,
NextBio, and Aurora Biofuels.

"Mostafa's entrepreneurial background makes him an ideal addition
to Illumina's culture," said Jay Flatley, Illumina's President and
Chief Executive Officer. "His extensive technical expertise and wealth
of experience developing technologies for genetic analysis will be a
tremendous asset to the Company going forward."

About Dr. Ronaghi's Compensation

The Company granted an option to purchase 115,000 shares of
Illumina's common stock to Dr. Ronaghi as part of his inducement to
join the Company. The option was granted by the Company's Compensation
Committee under Illumina's New Hire Stock and Incentive Plan, which
was approved by Illumina's Board of Directors on January 29, 2008.
This option has the following terms: an exercise price equal to the
closing fair market value of Illumina's common stock on the grant
date, a ten-year term and vesting over four years with 25 percent of
the option vesting one year from the grant date and 1/48th of the
option vesting monthly thereafter. The grant date for this option is
August 4, 2008.

About Illumina

Illumina (www.illumina.com) is a leading developer, manufacturer,
and marketer of next-generation life-science tools and integrated
systems for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function.
Using our proprietary technologies, we provide a comprehensive line of
products and services that currently serve the sequencing, genotyping,
and gene expression markets, and we expect to enter the market for
molecular diagnostics. Our customers include leading genomic research
centers, pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, clinical
research organizations, and biotechnology companies. Our tools provide
researchers around the world with the performance, throughput, cost
effectiveness, and flexibility necessary to perform the billions of
genetic tests needed to extract valuable medical information from
advances in genomics and proteomics. We believe this information will
enable researchers to correlate genetic variation and biological
function, which will enhance drug discovery and clinical research,
allow diseases to be detected earlier, and permit better choices of
drugs for individual patients.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995: this release may contain forward-looking
statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Among the important
factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from
those in any forward-looking statements are Illumina's ability (i) to
develop and commercialize further our BeadArray(TM), VeraCode(R), and
Solexa(R) technologies and to deploy new sequencing, gene expression,
and genotyping products and applications for our technology platforms,
(ii) to manufacture robust instrumentation and reagents technology,
together with other factors detailed in our filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission including our recent filings on
Forms 10-K and 10-Q or in information disclosed in public conference
calls, the date and time of which are released beforehand. We disclaim
any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements
beyond the date of this release.